The Master Thief
by ejwalker
Summary: A clever young man uses his wits to get what he wants. A folktale from Norway, retold Maple-style.
1. Part 1

Once upon a time, there was a poor man who had no money to pay for his son to be apprenticed. So he said to his son, "It is time for you to go out in the world and learn a trade. I cannot help you get started, so you may choose whatever trade you like. But whatever you do, do it well." So the son went out into the world to find a trade to learn.

* * *

One night he was traveling in a forest when a storm overtook him. The rain fell and the wind blew, and before he knew it he was lost. But he kept walking, and then he saw a light far off, so he started to walk toward it. When he reached it, he found that it came from a large house. He knocked at the door, and an old woman answered.

"Good evening," he said, "Could I stay here for the night?"

"Good evening," replied the old woman. "Indeed the weather is bad tonight, but you might find it preferable to staying here, for the masters of this house are not friendly to visitors."

"Who could turn a traveler away on a night like this?" asked the young man.

"A band of robbers," the old woman answered. "They kidnapped me many years ago to be their housekeeper, and I don't know how to get home, so I've never tried to run away."

"You know," said he, "I think I'd like to stay here anyway. I'd rather face a band of robbers than sleep outside on a night like this."

So the old woman let him in, saying, "Very well, you can't say I haven't warned you."

Then the young man went to bed and slept until the robbers came home. And when they came he woke up, but he pretended he was still asleep, so he could listen to their talk.

When the old woman told them about him, they asked if he had any money. The old woman didn't think he did, because he was dressed so poorly. So then they tried to decide what to do with him.

When the young man heard it suggested that they should kill him, he got up and asked them if they wanted a servant, because if they did he would gladly work for them.

"Do you want to learn our trade?" asked the leader, who called himself Raven. "If you do, then perhaps we can let you stay."

"My father told me I could learn whatever trade I wished," said the young man. "Yours doesn't seem difficult, I think I could learn it easily enough."

"We'll see about that," said Raven.

And so the young man stayed with them, but none of them trusted him, and so no one would teach him anything. But the young man was clever, and he watched them carefully, so he learned a great deal more than they thought.

* * *

Now one day the robbers learned that a man who lived nearby was going to take an ox to sell in town. So Raven called the young man and told him that if he could steal the ox without the owner noticing or being harmed, then the robbers would make him their apprentice, and begin to teach him their trade.

So the young man searched about the house, and found a fine shoe with a silver buckle. Its only problem was that it had no match. He took it, and hurried to the road where the ox owner would travel, and left it in the middle of the path. Then he hid himself in the bushes and waited.

Along came the ox owner, and he saw the shoe in the path. "That's a nice shoe," he said to his ox, for he had a habit of talking to things. "If only I had the matching one I would take them home, and maybe my wife would be happy for once." For his wife was very cranky and used to box his ears regularly. "Alas," he continued, "What good is a single shoe?" So he left the shoe where it was and walked on.

As soon as he was out of sight, the young man came out of hiding and picked up the shoe, and he hurried through the forest to a spot farther along the road. And when he got there, he again laid the shoe down in the path and hid himself.

When the ox owner came and saw the shoe, he got angry with himself. "Why didn't I pick up the first one?" he demanded of his ox. "I'll run back and get it." He tied his ox to a tree, picked up the shoe, and hurried back the way he had come.

But while he was looking for the other shoe, which of course wasn't there, the young man came out and untied the ox and took it back to the robbers' house.

When the ox owner discovered his ox was gone, he was very afraid that his wife would be angry with him. Then he had the idea to go home and get another ox to sell, for he still had two more. So he went and carefully snuck the ox out so that his wife would not know anything about it.

* * *

The robbers were surprised when the young man brought the ox in so easily, for they thought he knew nothing. But when they found out the ox owner was taking another ox to town, Raven called the young man again. "If you can get this ox too, without the owner knowing or being harmed, then you shall be one of us, and not just an apprentice."

"If that's all you want, I don't think it's very hard," said the young man.

"We'll see," said Raven, for he and all his men thought it was only beginner's luck.

This time the young man found himself a length of rope. He cut a short piece and tied it loosely around his neck, but so it looked snug, and the long remaining piece he tied around his chest under his arms, and pulled his shirt down over it with the end sticking out the back of his collar. Then he went again to the road, and climbed up in a tree that the ox owner would pass by, and tied the loose end to a branch. Then he lowered himself down and let himself hang from the branch, pretending to be dead, and waited for the ox owner to come.

When the ox owner came by he was a little startled, but there was nothing he could do, so he led the ox on.

When he was gone, the young man got out of the tree and took a shortcut through the forest, and hung himself up in another tree which the ox owner would pass by.

This time the ox owner was more startled. "Am I imagining things?" he said. "Well, I can't help him either." And he went on again.

Then the young man again got down from the tree and ran to get ahead of the ox owner, and hung himself up in another tree.

When the ox owner saw him there, he said to the ox, "All three look very similar, I begin to suspect there is sorcery afoot. Now you just wait here, while I go back and check if the others are still there." And he tied the second ox up also, and hurried back to look.

Then the young man took himself down and led the second ox away as easy as the first.

The ox owner discovered his second ox missing, and being afraid of his wife, he snuck back again to get the last ox to sell instead.

* * *

The robbers were amazed when the young man came back with the second ox, and learning of the ox owner's third trip, they did not bother to tell Raven, but went directly to the young man and told him if he could get this ox as he had the first two, he should be in charge of the whole band. For they thought he could not possibly trick someone three times in a row.

The young man went out again, but he took nothing with him this time. He simply went into the woods and started bellowing like an ox, so that the ox owner heard it and thought it was one of the two he had lost, or both.

So he tied up the third ox and plunged into the forest after the sound, but the young man quietly slipped around him and made off with the third even easier than the first two. So the ox owner stayed in the woods for many days, because he was so afraid of his wife's wrath.

* * *

The robbers were completely astonished when the young man returned with the third ox, and they were not eager to tell Raven that they had promised leadership to the young man. But it had to be done, and when Raven had given them a sound tongue-lashing he said that they should not fret, and made a plan to outwit the young man. So they all pretended to like their new master well, and called him the Phantom, and Raven humbly suggested that they should all go on a raid tomorrow to celebrate their new leader.

Now Phantom did not trust their gracious attitudes after the way they used to treat him, but he pretended to suspect nothing, even as they packed all their belongings into bundles.

And they were pleased when he didn't seem to notice that they were taking much more than was needed for a raid, and leaving practically nothing behind. For they planned to tie him up in the morning before he waked, and ride away to find a new place to stay.

But Phantom got up in the middle of the night, and with the old woman's help he got all their bundles tied to their horses without much noise, and all the horses tied into three pack trains. The old woman led one and Phantom led the others, and the two of them rode away and left the robbers with no way to chase them. Phantom even let the three oxen go, that they should find their way back to their master, and so the robbers could not even try to follow by riding those.

Then Phantom took the old woman with him a long ways, and soon they came to a village where the people knew the name of the old woman's hometown. So Phantom said that she should keep the pack train she led, and when she protested it was too much, he said she could always give some of the things away to the people to reward them for taking her home.

So she thanked him for rescuing her from the robbers and bringing her this far, and her guides led her away toward her home, and Phantom went another way with his two pack trains.


	2. Part 2

Now the Phantom came to a city, and there he saw the emperor riding by in his carriage, and his wife and daughter were with him. The daughter was very pretty, so that Phantom thought he would like to marry her. So he put on a uniform that he got out of the robbers' things, which looked like a general's, and he went to the palace to beg an audience with the emperor.

When he saw the emperor, he got straight to the point. "I want to marry your daughter."

The emperor asked, "What is your trade?"

Phantom replied, "I am a Master Thief."

The emperor laughed. "Well, most people would not admit to such a trade. As you not only admit it, but claim to be master of it, we shall see if you are as good as you claim. On Sunday we will be cooking a roast in the kitchen. If you can steal it from the spit while all the household are looking after it, you shall marry my daughter."

"Easy," said Phantom.

So he went and captured three live rabbits and put them in a bag, and on Sunday morning he dressed himself in old rags like a beggar and snuck into the palace.

All the household were in the kitchen watching the roast, and very funny they looked, all sitting there staring at it. But if any of them thought so, they didn't dare laugh because of how seriously the emperor himself sat watching with them.

In the courtyard, Phantom let one of the rabbits out of his bag, and it ran past the kitchen door. And the people in the kitchen noticed, and wanted to go try to catch it. But the emperor said, "It will be too hard to catch." So they all sat back to continue watching the roast.

Then Phantom let another rabbit loose, and the roast-watchers thought it was the same one, and wanted to chase it. But the emperor said, "It's no use trying to catch a running rabbit." So they settled down again.

Phantom let the last rabbit loose, and again all the household were eager to follow it. So the emperor gave in, saying, "Well, it is indeed a fine rabbit."

So everyone ran out to catch the rabbit, and if they had looked funny staring at a roast, they looked even funnier trying to corner a rabbit. But while the emperor was running about with them all, getting tired and overheated, Phantom snuck into the kitchen and stole the roast.

* * *

That afternoon a priest came to dinner, and the emperor had to explain why there was no roast. But the priest had no sympathy for the emperor, and laughed very thoroughly at him for being tricked.

The emperor did not like this, so when Phantom came to claim the princess, he told him, "You may marry my daughter, but first I want you to play a trick on this priest who has made fun of me for being taken in by you, and show him that it's easier to be fooled than he thinks."

"Well, that wouldn't be too hard," said Phantom.

So he dressed himself in a white sheet, and tied goose wings to his back, and climbed up in a maple tree that stood in the priest's garden. When the priest came home that night, Phantom cried out, "Father Laurence! Father Laurence!" That was the priest's name.

"Who is calling me?" said Father Laurence.

"An angel," Phantom called down to him. "I have been sent to tell you that you will be taken up into heaven Monday, a week from tomorrow, for your great piety. As you will no longer need them, you are to pile all your gold, silver, and other worldly goods together in your dining room, and then I will come to take you in a sack up to heaven."

Then Father Laurence fell on his knees before the angel, and thanked him. All week he was busy piling his wealth together in his dining room, and next Sunday he preached a farewell sermon, which was so touching that it made everyone in the church weep.

Then on Monday Phantom the angel came back, and the priest thanked him again before being put into the sack.

And Phantom dragged him in the sack, over sticks and stones, so that the priest yelped and asked where they were going.

"This is the narrow way which leads unto the kingdom of heaven," said Phantom, and kept on dragging him until he came to the emperor's goosehouse. Then he put the sack inside, and the geese started pecking and pinching the priest with their bills. "Now you are in purgatory," said Phantom, "to be cleansed and purified for life everlasting." And he left the priest there, and went away to steal all the things that the priest had left in his dining room.

The next morning the goosegirl came to let the geese out, and was rather surprised to find a sack there, from which were coming awful moans. "Who's there?" she cried, and the priest begged that if she was an angel to please let him out and send him back to earth, for he didn't think heaven was worth this much torture.

"I'm no angel, I only take care of the Emperor's geese," said the goosegirl, but she let him out, and he was very upset to have been tricked by the Master Thief.

* * *

The emperor laughed very much when he heard of it, but when Phantom came to claim his daughter, he told him, "No, not yet... I have twelve horses in my stable, I will put a groom on each of them, then I want you to try to steal the horses from under them."

"I daresay I can do it," Phantom answered, "But shall I really have your daughter if I can?"

"If you can," said the emperor.

"Very well," sighed Phantom.

He went and got some brandy, and filled two pocket flasks with it. Into one of them he mixed a sleeping potion, but not the other. He marked them carefully, so that he would know which was which, but no one else could tell the difference. Then he got out some a dress and some other things, which the old woman had owned, but they got into his packs by mistake, and if she missed them, why, she could buy plenty of replacements.

That night, he put on the dress, belted it tightly near the chest, and then shoved some rolled up socks in through the collar. He also put on a cloak with a hood, so it covered his face. Wrapping a shawl around himself for good measure, he tucked the flasks of brandy inside his cloak, then grabbed a staff and limped off to the emperor's stables.

When he got there, the grooms were watering their horses for the night. "What do you want?" one of them snapped.

Phantom answered in a croaky old woman's voice, "Brr! It is so bitter cold tonight. One could easily freeze to death." And he made himself shiver, which didn't take much acting because it really was a cold night, and the cold got up under the dress easily. "Could I stay here awhile, just inside the door?"

"Move along," growled the groom, "Pack yourself off right this minute."

"Leave the poor old hag alone," said another groom. "Let her sit inside, she can do us no harm."

Then the grooms all took to arguing, and some of them agreed with the first groom, and some with the second. But while they quarreled, Phantom stuck further into the stable, and sat himself down behind the door. And when the grooms saw this, they gave up their argument and let him stay where he was.

As the night wore on, the grooms found it very cold work to sit still on a horse all night, even though the horses' warmth helped. So they flapped their arms about to try to keep the cold off, and grumbled complaints to each other. "Brr!" said they, with chattering teeth, and in the corner Phantom shivered, and he too said, "Brr!"

After a little while, he took out the flask of plain brandy, and took a gulp of it, making sure to swallow noisily and slosh the flask a bit, and then tucked it back inside his cloak.

"What have you got there, old girl?" said one of the grooms.

"Oh, just a bit of brandy," answered Phantom.

"Brandy?" exclaimed the groom. "Oh, do share a drop with me!" And the rest of the dozen grooms clamored for some as well.

Then Phantom pretended to be reluctant, saying there was not enough, but they all insisted that since they had let the old lady into the stable, she ought to share the brandy. So Phantom got up, and pulled out the flask with the sleeping potion mixed in, and took it to the grooms and gave them each a drink. And no sooner had the last groom had his share than the first one started nodding off to sleep.

When they were all snoring, Phantom began to carefully move the grooms, taking each one off his horse and placing them on the beams between the stalls. Then he tied the horses into lines, and climbing on one of them he rode off, leading five horses behind him on one side and six on the other.


	3. Part 3

The next morning the emperor went to see how his grooms had fared, and found them all sitting on the beams. They were just beginning to wake up, and some of them fell right off their beams, while others just sat there looking stupidly around. And the emperor called them all blockheads for letting the Master Thief steal their horses like that, and ordered them all whipped soundly.

When the Phantom came to claim the emperor's daughter, the emperor gave him a nice amount of gold and asked him if he thought he could steal the emperor's horse while the emperor was riding it.

"Certainly," said the Phantom, "if I were really sure of getting your daughter."

Well the emperor said he would try to arrange things, and the first thing he arranged was the day he would go out riding for the Phantom to try stealing his horse.

Then Phantom went and got himself a worn out old mare, with raggedy harness and a rickety cart, and a big empty barrel. And when the day came, he dressed himself in patched and tattered clothes, and put on a fake beard. He hitched the old mare to the cart and put the empty barrel aboard it, dumped some water in the bottom, and then started driving the cart very slowly to where the emperor was riding.

The emperor had been riding for quite awhile, and was wondering if the Master Thief was even going to try stealing his horse, when he saw an old man driving a cart slowly along, with his finger stuck in a hole in the barrel beside him.

He was going so slow that the emperor didn't wait for him to come closer, but rode his horse right up to the cart. "Greetings, old man, have you seen anyone lurking about?" he demanded.

"No, yer majesty," stammered the old man, "Not seen a soul but yer majesty."

"Well," said the emperor, "I'll let you borrow my horse if you'll ride about some, and see if you can't stumble over somebody lurking around here."

"I'd be glad to oblige yer majesty," said the old man slowly, "But I'm takin' this barrel o' mead to a wedding, I am, and as yer can see, the cork 'as fallen out, so that I am obliged to keep my finger in the 'ole instead."

"Never mind that," said the emperor. "I'll do it for you, and keep an eye on your cart and horse. You just go looking for lurkers, and I'll throw a bit of money into the bargain for you."

So the old man agreed, and climbed up on the emperor's horse and rode off. The emperor sat himself on the cart and stuck his finger in the hole, and waited. He waited quite a long time before he realized he had been tricked. Then he was angry, and started walking home. But he had not gone too far before a servant rode up, leading a fresh horse for him, for Phantom had taken the emperor's horse home and sent the servant to fetch the emperor.

The emperor got home and gave Phantom twice as much gold as before, and said that his daughter should marry the Master Thief, if only he could achieve one last thing.

Phantom said he could probably do it, if he was told what it was.

So the emperor asked him if he thought he could steal the sheet off the emperor's bed, and the empress' nightgown.

Then Phantom's face turned a bit red, but he said, "It shall be done." As he hurried away he could be heard muttering, "I just wish I was as sure of getting the princess as I am of completing the job."

He went to the place where they hung thieves, and cut one of the bodies down, saying to it, "You failed as a thief in life, let's see if you do better now that you're dead." Then he got himself a good long ladder.

* * *

That night, the emperor lay awake in bed, with his musket by his side, while his wife muttered that he shouldn't shoot the Master Thief after telling him to come steal things. Pretty soon they heard a ladder being laid against the wall outside, and then they heard someone climbing it, and then they began to see the shape of a head poking up over the window ledge. It came up, and it went back down, and it came up again, as if someone was cautiously peeking in the window.

The emperor grabbed his musket and took aim at the bobbing head, and he had a terrible job of aiming, to be sure. But finally he fired, and the head disappeared, and there was a thump as something fell to the ground outside.

Then the emperor said, "I suppose I should go bury him, so people won't talk."

The empress sighed, "You must do what you think best, dear."

And the emperor trotted off downstairs.

Soon the empress thought she heard him returning. "Back already, dear?" she said, surprised.

"Oh yes," came the reply. "I just put him in a hole and threw a little dirt over him. It's so terribly cold out, I'll have have to make a better job of it later. But he was such a mess, do hand me the sheet to clean myself up with."

So the empress handed over the sheet.

Soon she heard a sigh. "What is it, dear?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing, I'm just about done now. But the sheet is all dirty, and I can't find any clean spots left. I think if you lent me your nightgown it would be enough to finish with."

The empress wrapped herself in the blankets and handed over her nightgown too. "All clean now, dear?" she asked after a moment.

"Yes, but I just remembered I have forgotten to lock the door. I'll be right back in a moment."

The empress waited patiently, and after a time she heard footsteps again. "My, what a long time you have taken to lock the door," she exclaimed.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" demanded the emperor, but he didn't wait for an answer. "That thief has gotten away somehow, but at least he didn't get the sheet or nightgown."

"Speaking of which, whatever did you do with them?" asked the empress curiously.

"What?" said the emperor, astonished. "I've done nothing with them. Do you mean that I've been fooled again?"

And when Phantom came in the morning, with the sheet and the nightgown as his neatly-folded evidence, the emperor had to give in.

* * *

But before a date could be set for the wedding, the emperor's realm was threatened by invaders, and he begged Phantom to go and steal their battle plans.

Phantom agreed. When he had gotten the plans and read them, he rushed back to the emperor's palace as fast as he could. But he was too late, the enemy had sent assassins and the emperor was dead, along with his wife. The princess was away at a ball, or they would have killed her too.

The assassins had already left by the time Phantom arrived. He stood in the throne room, where the emperor had been holding a council. "So... I did everything you asked," he said quietly. "And in the end, you cannot let me marry the princess after all. I suppose I shall have to steal her heart now, in order to marry her... At last, a challenge I am not sure of succeeding at." He turned to leave the palace, and found himself facing the princess, who had just arrived home from the ball.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"Greetings, Empress," he said. "I am the Phantom. I hope someday to be your husband, but for now I expect you will need time to grieve, so I shall be leaving to try and catch the assassins for you."

"Empress? Husband? Grieve?" The princess was overwhelmed by Phantom's words. "Assassins? What are you talking about?"

But the Master Thief was already climbing out one of the throne room windows. He paused. "What is your name?"

"Aria," answered the new empress. "But..."

However, he was already gone. For now, that is...


End file.
